Canucks and Beyond

For the month of February, it turns out that Ducks GM Brian Burke was keeping a diary of his trade negotiations and discussions with other general managers around the league. The diary has now been printed in USA Today and it makes for fascinating reading (if you're into this kind of thing, as I am).
Here are a couple samples -- and February 14th has a notable comment for Vancouver fans, by the way:

Tuesday, Feb. 13
Feaster tells me he is interested only in hockey deals, not rentals. I have a long talk with St. Louis Blues President John Davidson about Keith Tkachuk. They want Bobby Ryan in a package.
Wednesday, Feb. 14
Officially turn down the Blues. Vancouver GM Dave Nonis, my former assistant, tells me he is going to re-sign Salo. New York Rangers GM Glen Sather tells me he's not a seller, at least not yet.
Sunday, Feb. 25
Tkachuk is finally traded to Atlanta for Glen Metropolit and first-, second- and third-round picks, plus another first-rounder if the Thrashers re-sign him. Davidson and GM Larry Pleau hit it out of the park on that one. We decide to trade O'Brien to Tampa Bay. We need the first-round pick to get into the card game. We felt comfortable making the deal because of the way Kent Huskins had played when he was called up. Oilers GM Kevin Lowe thinks he could have trouble re-signing Ryan Smyth. Would I be interested? He said he would want a "Tkachuk style package." I say we can't do it. Craig Rivet is traded to San Jose by Montreal, and I call and whine to Gainey about not calling me back and telling me he was available. He tells me that I was late to that party, and he had been talking to Doug Wilson for three weeks. Fair enough.

February 25th is particularly interesting because it appears that not only did Oilers' GM Kevin Lowe seem to anticipate salary negotiations may fall apart two days before the deadline, BUT Lowe was also shopping him to Western Conference teams.
When Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland stated this week that he was never even contacted about Smyth being available for trade, the implication was that Lowe didn't get the best offer possible for his star player since he didn't open up the floor to the highest bidder. However many others have assumed that Lowe was simply not willing to let him go to a western team. But apparently that's not the case.
Now if only we could read Kevin Lowe's February trade diaries -- I'm very curious about what the difference was for him, making Smyth available to some teams and not others.
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*thanks to David at TIB for pointing me to this USA Today article

About Canucks and Beyond

Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003 (with a notable gap in time through 2010, kicking it with new baby Lucy while living knee-deep in chaos while reading "parenting for complete idiots" during every spare minute) sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen.

In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla's Korner, Alanah was one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast. She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York TimesSlapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.